


That Voice Which Calls To Me, And Speaks My Name

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Fringe, Lost
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 02:23:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Naomi Dorrit is replaced by a shape-shifter, Miles claims to have heard the real Naomi talking to him. The Fringe team are called to investigate, but when Miles sees Walter and Olivia again, he discovers the real reason why he can talk with ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Voice Which Calls To Me, And Speaks My Name

**Author's Note:**

> Canon disregarded for Lost.

Olivia groaned at the sound of her phone ringing. Broyles. Great. So much for her day off with Rachel and Ella today.

“Dunham.”

“It’s Broyles. We have a case. I need you to get the Bishops and meet me on scene.” Agent Broyles named an address in downtown Boston. “Naomi Dorrit, aged 32. She and her boyfriend, Miles Straume, were in a collision with an SUV about an hour ago. The boyfriend was thrown clear and uninjured, but when the medics got there they noticed that Ms Dorrit was bleeding mercury.”

Olivia sighed. “Another shape-shifter.”

“Yes. But before you set off,” Broyles continued, “there’s something you should know. As soon as Mr. Straume saw the mercury, he started saying something about how Naomi was talking to him.”

 

“So this guy thinks he’s getting messages from a dead shape-shifter now?” Peter asked. “Just when you think you’ve seen it all. Still, it’ll save Walter having to decrypt its disk.”

“Not the shape-shifter,” Olivia corrected. “Broyles said it was the real Naomi who was talking to him.”

“Just a pity she couldn’t have started talking to him sooner,” Peter commented. “Then he’d have known he was with a shape-shifter.”

Olivia flinched; she knew Peter hadn’t meant anything by it, but he’d managed to remind her of the time, a few months ago, when she hadn’t realised that Charlie had been replaced by a shape-shifter. Luckily, she was distracted by Broyles approaching them, followed by two agents leading a man who must be Miles Straume.

“Mr. Abaddon?” he said, addressing Broyles. “What the hell is this? What did you have her working on that would make anyone want to kill her?”

“I’m sorry, I think you must have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Colonel Phillip Broyles. Fringe Division, FBI.” He held up his ID badge, causing Miles to blink in surprise.

“That’s insane. You look just like him. That’s Matthew Abaddon, COO of the American branch of Widmore Industries. Naomi reported to him.”

Broyles raised his eyebrows, but pushed this to one side as if to deal with it later. “We’ll be needing to talk to this Mr. Abaddon. This is Agent Olivia Dunham, also with the Division, and Peter Bishop, civilian consultant. And –“ He was about to introduce Walter, but Walter had wandered off to inspect the shape-shifter and to give instructions to the agents who were arranging its transportation to the lab.

Miles shook hands with Olivia and Peter. “Agent Dunham, have we met somewhere before? Only your face looks kinda familiar.”

Olivia shook her head. “I don’t think so. Now I understand you told the medics that your girlfriend spoke to you after the accident.”

“It’s something I’ve always been able to do.” Miles explained. “I’ve never known why. It started when I moved to California when I was a kid. We were looking at an apartment, and some guy in the block had just dropped dead. I heard him talking about his wife.”

Olivia hastily interrupted this story. “So what did she say to you?”

“She told me she’d been killed sixteen days ago. She’d opened the door of our apartment to someone she thought was working with her on the project. Could it have been Abaddon? Is that why he looks so much like your Agent Broyles, because he’s a shape-shifter too?”

“In our experience, shape-shifters take the form of the deceased, not the living,” Peter explained. “We will be questioning Abaddon, but we can’t say at this moment that he’s involved.”

“Did she tell you any more of what happened?” Olivia asked.

“No. It’s usually better if I have the actual body,” Miles explained as though on automatic pilot. It obviously hadn’t sunk in yet, Olivia could tell. “She told me she was at the bottom of Reiden Lake.”

“We’ll check that out,” Peter promised. “We’ll have her brought to my father’s lab, so you can...talk to her there. Here he comes now. Miles, this is...”

But Miles’s mouth had dropped open at the sight of Walter.

“You!”

*****

If Matthew Abaddon was shocked at the sight of a man who looked just like him walking into the office, he didn’t show it. Still, from what Phillip knew of Widmore Industries, one of the major rivals of Massive Dynamic, he suspected that this man was probably beyond being shocked.

“Naomi Dorrit reported directly to me on this project,” Abaddon explained. “She was working in one of our physics laboratories. She was part of a team investigating certain...research notes from a now-defunct company called the DHARMA Initiative which have come into our possession.”

“And what had they been researching?” Broyles asked.

“They believed that they could find a way to manipulate time.”

*****

“What the hell is he doing here?” Miles demanded, pointing at Walter. “And you! You’re Olive Dunham. You were part of his freaky experiments. You were at Jacksonville. You were paired with, what was his name, Nick, and I was paired with a girl named Miranda.”

“You were part of the Cortexiphan trials?” Olivia asked. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you.”

“Why are you working with this guy?” Miles asked, as though Olivia hadn’t spoken. “Don’t you remember any of what he and his friend Belly did to us?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve tried, but I really don’t remember anything about that time.”

“Mr. Straume! Of course,” Walter muttered. “Subject 23. You were the one who we lost track of because you were abruptly taken out of the program. I often wondered over the years what abilities you may have.”

“Abilities?” Miles repeated. “You mean you and your experiments are the reason why I can talk to dead people?”

“Very interesting,” Walter continued, more to himself than to Miles. “Talking to dead people is not an ability either Belly or myself had foreseen.”

“Walter!” Peter placed a hand on his arm to interrupt him. “I don’t think that’s helping.”

“Of course.” Walter blushed. “I am sorry.”

“Dunham.” Olivia had turned away to take a call. “Okay, thanks for letting me know. If you could arrange for transportation to the lab, that would be great.” She turned back towards Miles. “That was the team at Reiden Lake. Your information checked out. They’re arranging for Naomi to be brought to us.”

*****

“Is that a cow?” Miles asked when he walked into the lab.

Astrid nodded. “Walter’s idea. You’re not the first person to react that way to Gene.”

“You freaks even gave it a name?” Have to tell Lapidus that one, Miles thought before it suddenly struck him. Naomi was dead, she’d been replaced by a shape-shifter for two weeks and he hadn’t even known, he’d just found out the reason why he could talk to ghosts, and here he was asking stupid questions about a cow?

“You know, any other team would be hauling you in for questioning right about now, since you knew where the body was,” Peter pointed out. “You’re lucky you have us freaks as the team investigating.”

“Peter.” Olivia shook her head. “Listen, Miles, don’t beat yourself up about this. You’re not the first person not to realise their loved one’s been replaced. It happened to me a few months ago, with my partner. He’d been acting as part of this team for a few weeks, and no one, not us, not his wife, noticed.”

“I just feel like I should have known, you know?”

“Okay, they’re bringing her through now,” Broyles said as he arrived. “I’ve spoken with Mr. Abaddon. It really is most uncanny,” he broke off for a minute. “He’s explained to me that Naomi Dorrit had been working on some research which involved time travel.”

“Time travel?” Astrid repeated. “What would the other universe want with that?”

“Trying to go back to the point where all the destruction over there started happening, so they could stop it?” Peter suggested.

Olivia couldn’t look at Walter; she knew what he was thinking. Or Walternate is trying to go back to 1985 to prevent Peter from being taken. 

“Walter?” Astrid tugged on his sleeve. “Don’t you think you should take the shape-shifter away so that Miles doesn’t have to see it while he’s trying to communicate with Naomi?”

“Of course.” Walter hastily made his way over to the trolley where the shape-shifter lay.

“Is there anything you need?” Broyles asked.

“I don’t want everyone here while I’m talking to her.” Miles snapped. “Just her.” He pointed to Olivia.

*****

“Do you think he really is talking to her?” Astrid asked.

“No idea.” Peter shrugged. 

“Well, when I spoke with Mr. Abaddon, he gave me the name of someone he felt was the most likely suspect,” Broyles replied. “It will be interesting to see what answers Miles comes up with.”

*****

“There were two people who came to the house,” Miles began. “One was a guy called Omar, the other named Martin, uh, Keamy. And someone else was working with them, a woman named Zoe. I know who that is; she looks a bit like Tina Fey. I don’t think I ever met the other two.”

“Okay, I’ll pass those names on to Broyles,” Olivia nodded, writing them down. “Did she say anything else?”

“That they were trying to get hold of the technology for...” Miles frowned. That didn’t make sense. “Another universe? So that they could use it in some kind of war?” He blinked in surprise when he realised that Olivia wasn’t shocked by this.

“I know what she’s talking about. Anything else?”

“Mostly personal stuff. She says she doesn’t blame me for not spotting the switch.”

Olivia smiled. “I knew she wouldn’t.”

There had been more that Naomi had said, but Miles wasn’t going to share it with her. She didn’t need to know that Naomi had said the reason she had wanted to become involved with the DHARMA project was that she had wanted to find out the answers that Miles had long since reconciled himself to never getting. She’d found out some information from the files; some information about his father, why he’d told them to go all those years ago. Miles knew that his father had cared. And knowing that, he didn’t care about all this other universe crap. He’d found out all he needed to know.

*****

“Omar was the name Mr. Abaddon had given me as a possible suspect for our shape-shifter,” Broyles explained. “He hadn’t been seen for two weeks, but he had explained this away by requesting some personal time, so Mr. Abaddon had thought nothing of his disappearance. But thanks to Naomi, Martin Keamy and Zoe Roberts have been apprehended.”

“We’ll be releasing Naomi’s body to you as soon as the paperwork’s completed,” Olivia explained. “You can take her home.”

“Mr. Straume?” Walter began. “I wanted to talk to you before you left. I want to say that I’m sorry for everything that I did to you...”

“Look, not now, okay? This isn’t a good time. Maybe later, when I’ve got my head around it a bit more. But I can’t deal with it today.” He knew that there would come a day when he would want to ask questions, such as why he had been selected for the trials in the first place. And had his mother ever known? Walter had said something about Miles having left the trials abruptly – was that because his mother had found out and removed him? Maybe one day he’d go back to Walter for the answers, and maybe he wouldn’t. He didn’t know yet. But he did know that today wasn’t the right time. He needed to grieve for Naomi first, and then he’d see.

*****

“Well, I’d like to say it’s been fun, but...”

“I understand.” Olivia replied. It would take a while for Miles to process everything that had happened today, she knew.

“I still don’t understand how you can work so closely with that man, knowing what he is.”

Olivia shook her head. “I’ve asked myself that same question a few times now. But his expertise has helped us out so many times.”

“Whatever. Oh, before I go, I have another message for you too. It’s from someone named Charlie.”

“Charlie?” Olivia repeated. Even as Miles had talked to Naomi and all the information had been proved correct, she’d still had her moments of wondering whether this was all for real – yet she was sure that when she’d told Miles the story of her partner who’d been replaced by a shape-shifter, she hadn’t mentioned his name.

“Yeah. Your old partner, right? I know I said it’s easier when there’s a body, but sometimes I can get messages when there isn’t. He said that he doesn’t blame you for not spotting the switch, just like Naomi didn’t blame me. And he said something else as well, that you’re gonna be fine. He said you’d understand that.”

Olivia nodded, remembering the first time she’d worked with Charlie, then the day after his funeral when she’d rearranged those initials from the business cards to spell out that message. “I understand. Miles?”

Miles, who had turned to go, turned back around.

“Thank you.”

As Olivia watched him go, she knew that it was true.


End file.
